


it’s gonna be forever (or it’s gonna go down in flames)

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: A Rose By Any Other Name [1]
Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Chameleon Arch, Crack, F/M, Fobwatch, Ridiculousness, Rose is the Master, goes AU after series 2 of Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2600528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rose grows curious about the fob watch in her pocket, and the Master discovers that there's nothing more inconvenient than being in love with your nemesis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it’s gonna be forever (or it’s gonna go down in flames)

**Author's Note:**

> Started this fic years ago, but only finished it today. Takes place sometime after Doomsday; ignores series 3.

**it’s gonna be forever (or it’s gonna go down in flames)**

Rose had been stranded in Pete’s World for about three months when she finally thought to wonder about the fob watch.

She’d always carried it in a pocket somewhere, taking it with her everywhere. It had become so automatic that she didn’t even think about it, but now she frowned, trying to remember where it had come from. Hadn’t it belonged to her grandfather, or something?

Rose took a closer look, noticing for what seemed to be the first time the complicated design of concentric circles across the watch case. Her frown deepened. The design looked kind of familiar. Actually, now she thought about it… hadn’t some of the designs in the TARDIS looked a little like that?

Curiosity overcoming her, Rose opened the watch. Golden light sprang from the watch, enveloping her.

A moment later, the woman who had – for a while, at least – been Rose Tyler opened her eyes.

“Oh, you’ve got to be _kidding_ me,” said the Master.

* * *

The Master spent the first week as herself in a sulk. No one seemed to notice anything different about her behaviour, which made things even more infuriating – Rose had spent the last three months in a depression over losing the Doctor, and everyone seemed to just assume that the Master’s sulk was more of the same.

The reason for the sulk was that Rose’s stupid infatuation with the Doctor should have sloughed off like water off a duck’s back along with the rest of her humanity, but it hadn’t. Instead it had lingered on, along with an inscrutable fondness for chips.

The fact was, Rose Tyler might be gone, but her ridiculously insipid, all-consuming love for the Doctor, wasn’t.

Bollocks, thought the Master bitterly. Wasn’t that just _typical._

* * *

Back when she was still Rose, and left standing on a beach listening to the Doctor ramble on without actually saying the most important part (and wasn’t that _just like him_ ), the Doctor had said that returning to her own universe was impossible, but between the two of them, the Doctor had never been the engineering genius.

The Master sat down and spent several days working on calculations and blueprints, planning out a way to return to where she belonged without tearing apart two universes. It was going to be expensive, and she was going to need to go to other times and planets to do it, but the Master worked out that –

“Rose!” came a yell from downstairs. “It’s that nice young man from Torchwood on the phone, the one who sent the flowers! I told him you’ll be down in a minute!”

The Master let out a groan and let her forehead hit the surface of her desk.

Sure, it was possible to return to her own universe, but first she had to gather the resources she needed to start implementing her plans, and convince her ‘family’ to let her swan off into the sunset.

It would have been so much easier to just kill them all, but they _had_ provided for her all this time, and there were still a few niggling little Rose-instincts that meant that the Master responded to Jackie Tyler with an ingrained eyeroll, instead of an attempt to murder her horribly.

Besides, familial devotion was a useful thing, and given the length and unpredictability of Time Lord lives, there was a chance the Master might need it some day. Best not to burn bridges just yet, if she could help it.

“At least the epic love story of the Doctor and Rose Tyler means no one’s going to question it when I sod off back home,” the Master muttered. “Because I’m Rose Tyler and he’s the Doctor, and even the laws of reality can’t keep us apart. _Ugh_.”

“ _Rose!_ ”

The Master rolled her eyes so hard she might have pulled a muscle, and begrudgingly went to answer the phone.

Just a little while longer, and she could indulge her megalomaniacal heart in all the evil and villainy she liked.

* * *

The Master waited until her plans were all in place and she was ready to leave Earth before she told her ‘family’ the truth. She chose a night when Mickey had dropped by for dinner, because why not?

“I’ve found a way back to my universe,” the Master announced. “Also, just thought you should know, Jackie, I’m not actually your daughter.” The Master paused dramatically.

“What are you going on about this time?” Jackie asked.

“See this?” The Master held up the fob watch covered in Gallifreyan writing. “Looks like a watch, but isn’t. It’s actually a repository for the DNA signature and memories of a Time Lord. Allows them to switch species, gives them a set of false memories, etcetera, so that they can blend in perfectly with whatever species they’re hiding among.” The Master grinned. “Guess who’s actually a Time Lord?”

“What?” said Mickey.

“You’re saying you’re a Time Lord,” Pete said slowly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jackie. “You couldn’t possibly–”

“I hypnotised you, established a paper trail for myself, and then used a Chameleon Arch to establish myself as your child,” the Master said with a smirk, “a disguise so perfect that even I didn’t know the truth. You came back from holiday with a baby and all the right papers, no one thought anything of it. But Rose Tyler never existed. She was nothing more than an elaborate disguise.”

There was silence.

“Well, I suppose that explains a bit about your obsession with the Doctor, doesn’t it?” Jackie said, eventually.

“What?” said the Master.

“Were you always madly in love with him, then?” asked Mickey. “Trying desperately to get his attention?”

“ _What?_ No! I was his worst enemy! I tried to kill him! Multiple times! It wasn’t about his _attention!_ ” the Master spluttered.

“Oh, you poor thing, it never worked, did it?” Jackie asked sympathetically, ignoring the Master's denials. “Never mind. I mean, he’s the last one, isn’t he? So I’m sure he’ll be glad to see he’s not alone, like he thought. And you two have a history now, all that time travelling together.”

Mickey was nodding along in agreement, while Pete just looked bemused and wary.

No one was screaming or crying. This wasn’t going as the Master had expected.

“You were supposed to be shocked and upset,” the Master said after a little while.

Jackie clucked her tongue.

“Sweetheart, after everything you’ve done, there’s not much left you can do to surprise me. Besides, you’ll always be my daughter, no matter what. Now eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

The Master gave up, and quietly ate her dinner.

She had no idea how the others had translated ‘has attempted on multiple occasions to kill the Doctor’ into ‘trying to attract his romantic interest,’ but decided to leave them to their delusions.

Jackie brought out dessert then, giving the largest slice to the Master, and the Master basked in the consequences of her misplaced sympathy.

* * *

It took the harnessed power of a black hole to get the Master back to her own universe. She picked out a black hole far from occupied space, realised what she’d just done, and had an argument with herself about subconscious urges to avoid casualties, and whether she should deliberately choose a populated area of space, now, just to point out that there was no reason to her to avoid doing so.

In the end, the Master decided to stick with the black hole in unoccupied space: after all, it wasn’t like she had anything to prove, and causing mindless violence and catastrophe when she wasn’t around to see it happened kind of took all the fun out of things.

* * *

The first thing the Master did back in her own universe was take half of UNIT hostage, because she liked to make a grand entrance, and it was a while since she’d messed with UNIT. Idiots had gotten all complacent.

The Master ended up locking all her hostages in a conference room, then locked herself in someone’s laboratory when more soldiers appeared out of nowhere.

It didn’t take much time or effort to set up a Time-Space Telegraph, and so the Master sent out a message and waited for the Doctor to show up. He did.

Two hours late. Just typical.

The Doctor exited the TARDIS and then just stood there staring, his expression full of shocked confusion as his eyes landed on the Master. Well. At least he was still the pretty regeneration, the Master thought.

“I gave you the exact space-time coordinates, and you _still_ managed to arrive two hours late,” said the Master, utterly unimpressed. “No wonder you never passed your driving test.”

The Doctor’s face was full of indescribable emotion.

“Rose?” said the Doctor, his voice full of disbelieving hope, because he always was a bit slow.

“Well, not exactly.” The Master tossed him her fob watch with a grin. “You could say I’ve upgraded since you last saw me.”

The Doctor caught the fob watch automatically, brow furrowed in confusion, his expression turning to comprehension and horror as he read the name on the outside of the watch and realised what it was.

“ _No_ ,” he said. “No, no, no, no!” The look he turned on the Master would have been heart-rending, if the Master had been anyone else.

“Oh, yes,” said the Master, smirking. “Hello, Doctor. Missed me?”

“You can’t be the Master,” said the Doctor, looking like he was facing his own personal nightmare. “You just can’t! Rose–”

“ _Not_ my name,” snapped the Master. “Go on. Use the right one.”

“ _Master_ ,” said the Doctor, and his voice was full of despair.

“I love it when you say my name,” said the Master, grinning.

But the Doctor only winced, and stared at her bleakly.

“Whatever you’re up to, I’ll stop you,” he said darkly.

The Master rolled her eyes.

“ _I’ll stop you_ ,” she mimicked. “You are _so_ annoying. I don’t understand how I could go human for a mere twenty-two years, and end up stupidly in love with you.”

“What?” asked the Doctor hoarsely.

“Like, all those idiot companions of yours I used to mock,” continued the Master, unheeding, “and I’ve turned into one. It’s really unfair.”

“Master–” the Doctor grabbed her by the shoulders and stared down at her desperately.

The Master raised her eyebrows at him.

“Don’t go all doe-eyed on me,” she said. “Just because you’re all big-eyed and pretty this regeneration doesn’t mean anything, except that maybe I’d like to see your bum out of the suit sometime because, alright, it looks pretty fine in it. I mean, we’re still, you know, best enemies and all that. Just because I’ve got all these stupid _feelings_ doesn’t mean I’m going to _change_ or anything.”

“The people you said you had hostage,” said the Doctor. He still had that desperate look. “Where are they?”

“Oh, I locked them in a conference room,” said the Master easily. “Don’t worry; they’re all still alive, although probably rather annoyed by now. It was absurdly easy, they’ve gotten awfully complacent about their security since I was last here–”

“But you didn’t kill them,” the Doctor said urgently, still clutching at her, “you could have, but you didn’t.”

“I wasn’t in the mood,” said the Master, scowling at him. “Look, I didn’t have a reason to kill them, so I didn’t. That’s all.”

“Master,” said the Doctor, and his voice had gone all sort of breathy and broken, “please, tell me–”

“God, you are so _dense_ sometimes,” the Master said, rolling her eyes, and yanked hard on his tie to pull him in for a snog.

The Doctor instantly kissed back with the fervour of a dying man, and part of the Master’s mind was immediately all kittens and rainbows, which was disgusting really, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it, so she focused on snogging him and grabbing his arse instead.

The Doctor made a kind of startled, surprised-to-discover-he-approved noise at the arse-grabbing, and immediately reciprocated.

The Master found herself with the Doctor’s tie twisted tightly in one hand and the lapel of the Doctor’s coat gripped tightly in the other, wanting to do nothing more than push him back against the nearest table and…

Regaining control of herself, the Master stopped the kissing, and pulled tightly on the Doctor’s tie until his choked. Both the Doctor’s hands went to his throat, and the Master took a step back as the Doctor frantically loosened his tie.

She watched, grinning cheerfully, as he sent her a wounded glare.

“Slow down, cowboy,” she drawled. “Taking it a bit fast there, don’t you think?”

“You know, I’d thought maybe you’d gone over your penchant for torturing me,” said the Doctor. “But no, that’s too much to ask, isn’t it, you’ve just concentrated your efforts in a new direction.”

The Master grinned, catching her tongue between her teeth in the way she _knew_ drove him crazy.

“You love it,” she purred.

The Doctor looked sulky, but didn’t deny it.

“Oh, this is going to be _so_ much fun,” the Master promised, grinning, reaching up to tangle her fingers in that impossible dark hair. “By the time I’m finished, I’m going to have you wrapped around my little finger.”

She didn’t tell him that it sort of went the other way, too. His ego was inflated enough already.

“Rassilon help me,” said the Doctor, but when she reeled him in for more kissing, he went willingly enough.

Oh yeah. This was going to be so much fun, definitely.

“Hang on,” said the Doctor, breaking off the kiss, “wait, are you telling me half of UNIT is still locked in a conference room?”

“Priorities,” the Master told him dismissively, and kissed him again.

* * *

She stole his TARDIS afterwards, of course, because _hello_ , the Master, here. It wasn’t like she was _good_ , or anything.

“Just a quick joyride,” she told the TARDIS, who was humming dubiously. She gave the console a brief pat, and smirked.

Oh, she’d bring the TARDIS back eventually. But there was no reason she couldn’t have a little fun, first.


End file.
